NIGHT, gloomy queen, upon thy dusky throne,
Night of the world beneath the power of sin,
,
Night, when the race the reign of death must own,
Midst thy deep shadows must my song begin.
Thy clouds and tempests, with their fearful din,
Must now the rapture of my muse inspire,
As from her stormy harp some strains she'd win,
To kindle with its tones poetic fire,
That, roused by music, she may gain ambition's hire.
Night is the time when good men are asleep,
Seeking, from toil and tumult, balmy rest;
When wicked men their secret vigils keep,
To watch for mischief; when, in stealthy quest,
The assassin creeps to pierce his victim's breast
With murderous knife; when prowling thieves
abroad
Search, with unholy hands, their neighbor's chest,
To steal his honest gains; when hags, outlawed, Pursue their wretched trade, by nothing overawed.
Night is a season when tempestuous wrath
More metely conjures up its boisterous storms,
When, glancing fiercely on the thunderer's path,
The lightning, with its leaping fires, transforms
Stark midnight into noon; when, in swift swarms,
The legions of the tempest rush and thunder,
Peal from the shaking sky their dread alarms,
As if to rend the heavens and earth asunder,
And, with their tumult, fill all hearts with fear and
wonder.
But night has calms, when wrangling storms are
hushed,
When, from the clouds, the torrents cease to fall,
When, off the sky, the murky mists are brushed
By blandest winds, when, sparkling over all,
Rears the blue, spangled dome ethereal;
Whe moon and stars their glittering hosts array,
And all to one another grandly call,
Each emulous heaven's mandates to obey,
Far as their orbits run out on the milky way.
Night hath its voices, harsh, discordant, some,-
The owl's weird cry, the howls of beasts of prey,
As they, for food, out from their coverts come :-
Yet on the city's wall, in each highway,
Is heard the watchman's call, till coming day,
Assuring safety: then are trilled the songs
Of nightingale, which sweetly die away,
And whip-poor-will her plaintive notes prolongs, In lonely groves, retired from daylight's bustling
throngs.
There is a night that ne'er shall have a day,
When ceaseless storms their fearful conflicts wage,
Which fill the soul with trembling and dismay,
When moon nor stars the darkness can assuage,
Nor joy the wretched, hopeless heart engage;
But nature's night, though stormy, hath an end,
The tempest's sharpest turmoils cease to rage,
When, o'er the sleepy hills, the sun shall send His kindly rays, and all the darkened world befriend.
A night there is, of sorrow, when the soul
Bows low in grief, and shakes with pallid fear,
When waves on waves of anguish o'er her roll,
And earthward turned, she finds no helper near;
But when to heaven she looks, with listening ear,
Comes from the bending sky, a message sweet-
“But for a night, shall sorrow drop the tear
On ruined hope, for, when day's heralds greet Thine eyes, then shall return bright joy on bounding
Night of the grave! thy symbol nature's night,
How dark and dismal is thy rayless gloom!
When sets life's sun, or quenched its joyous light
Amid the darksome mists that shroud the tomb,
In which all men may read their final doom.
Yet for the Christian this dread night shall end,
For on his grave sweet flowers immortal bloom,
Assuring that the trump of God shall rend
Its bars, and bid the prisoned saint the skies ascend.
But likest nature's night, the night which shrouds
The world with sin's long, lasting, fearful gloom,
When heaven's sweet sky is covered thick with
clouds,
Dark as the shadows which at midnight come;
When desert winds have blasted Eden's bloom,
And night's damp shades the fruits of Eden killed;
Darker the pall thrown o'er Religion's tomb,
Than that, when souls are with deep anguish filled, When warm and loving hearts, with death's cold touch,
are chilled.
Ah! what a night of revel, sin and shame,
When o'er the earth, from hell, an endless flood
Of fiends came trooping, legion is their name,
Whose work is robbery, violence and blood;
To fill with poison what is sweet and good,
Kill peace and joy, and bathe the world in tears,
To mix with bitterness man's earthly food,
And chase his weary soul with gloomy fears,
When, last, he sinks in death to end his toilsome years,
|